BAE's lobbying

BAE has immense lobbying power throughout Whitehall and Downing Street. The company ensured warmth from the incoming Labour government of 1997 by pouring a reported £12m into a pet Blair project, the Millennium Dome, as well as sponsoring Labour party events.

BAE often plays the jobs card with ministers, threatening that large numbers of people will lose theirs if a decision goes against the company.

Critics allege that BAE has a stranglehold on Downing Street. BAE has certainly fostered very close relationships with senior figures at No 10. Robin Cook, the Labour foreign secretary between 1997 and 2001, famously said: "I came to learn that the chairman of BAE appeared to have the key to the garden door to No 10. Certainly I never knew No 10 to come up with any decision that would be incommoding to BAE."

As prime minister, Tony Blair regularly pushed foreign governments to buy BAE's military equipment. In 2002 he personally lobbied the Indian prime minister to buy BAE's Hawk jets during a meeting at Chequers, even though at the time India and Pakistan had hundreds of thousands of troops facing each other in Kashmir. Ministers pressed India to buy Hawk jets on 12 occasions over three years, according to one analysis [document]. Also in 2002, Blair flew to Prague to promote the sale of jet fighters - this deal has been investigated for bribery. [Czech Republic profile]

In 2001 Blair had ignored colleagues' objections to the sale of BAE's radar to Tanzania, a deal that was later investigated for corruption [Tanzania profile]. In 2000 he brushed aside the protests of the then foreign secretary, Robin Cook, to the sale of spare parts for BAE's Hawk jets to Zimbabwe. The Hawks were being used by Zimbabwe in a Congolese civil war that cost tens of thousands of lives. The decision blew a hole in Cook's attempts to introduce a more ethical foreign policy.

BAE executives regularly meet ministers, particularly in the Ministry of Defence, and the MoD has given security passes to BAE executives allowing them to roam freely around their offices. Julian Scopes, BAE's chief lobbyist and a former MoD civil servant, was given one of these passes, allowing him access to ministers and officials to push the company's commercial interests.

Other politicians and officials on BAE's payroll include:

· Michael Portillo Tory defence secretary between 1995 and 1997. He famously lost his seat during Labour's landslide in the 1997 general election. He got back into parliament in 1999, failed to become Tory leader in 2001 and then stepped down as an MP in 2005. As defence secretary he persuaded Qatar to buy arms worth £ 500m from BAE - in return BAE paid a £7m commission to the Qatari foreign minister. In 2002 he became a non-executive director of the company. He was paid around £36,000 a year for a few days' work a month. He was at one point tipped to be BAE chairman. He quietly resigned his directorship in 2006.

· Clive Hollick Businessman and peer who was a director of British Aerospace between 1992 and 1997. He moved into government as special adviser to the trade secretary Margaret Beckett and then Peter Mandelson. It is alleged that Robin Cook blamed Hollick's influence at Downing Street as the reason he could not get the government to control arms exports more tightly. Hollick was a major donor to Labour, helped Tony Blair win support from the corporate world, and had advised Labour leaders since 1987. He was made a life peer in 1991.

· Peter Inge Chief of the defence staff between 1994 and 1997 and now a peer. He is a paid adviser, he says, on the Middle East. He was accused of not declaring his BAE connection when he spoke against cuts in military spending in 2004.

· Sir John Day BAE's senior military adviser since 2003. When he left his post as head of RAF strike command, the independent watchdog monitoring the movement of officials to companies recommended that he should wait a year before taking up his new BAE job. The committee warned that Day "had been involved with Air Force Board decisions which would have a direct bearing on the MoD's business with [BAE]". But in a highly unusual move, the prime minister personally overruled the watchdog, saying that it was "in the national interest" to let Day move to the firm.

· David Mellor Tory minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major. While he was an MP in the 1990s, British Aerospace paid him to advise on marketing, particularly how to secure contracts in the Middle East. He was paid up to £100,000 a year by British Aerospace.

· Thomas Taylor Former Labour leader of the council of Blackburn, the town that hosts BAE's Samlesbury plant. Now a peer, Lord Taylor of Blackburn is not only paid by BAE but contributes towards the election expenses of Jack Straw, the town's MP, leader of the Commons and advocate of BAE workers' interests. · David Hart Flamboyant Old Etonian and property speculator who recovered from bankruptcy after the death of his wealthy merchant banker father. He won Margaret Thatcher's favour by fund-raising and recruiting strike-breakers during the miners' strike of 1984. After speechwriting for Old Etonian colleague Archie Hamilton, who became a defence minister, he was unofficial adviser to Tory defence secretaries Malcolm Rifkind and Michael Portillo. He was hired as a lobbyist after 1997 by BAE chairman Dick Evans.

· John Porter Even the most junior officials have benefited from BAE largesse. Porter, a low-level government functionary at Deso on the Saudi Arabian project, was given unauthorised free holidays and theatre trips by BAE.

BAE has been covertly paying private investigators to spy on campaigners against the arms trade. In 2002 it was revealed that BAE was paying a private security firm run by Evelyn le Chene £120,000 a year to penetrate the Campaign Against the Arms Trade. She was alleged to have infiltrated the group using agents who took computer files, passed on details of protests and conducted surveillance on activists.